There are many situations that create unusual load levels on mobile networks. As used herein, an unusual load level is a load level greater than or equal to a predetermined load level. The issue of unusual load levels is not only bandwidth-related; an extraordinary number of attached user equipment (UEs) may also cause unusual load levels. Such situations typically occur when large numbers of people gather for events such as concerts, sports events, demonstrations, festivals, etc.
When these network congestion situations are imminent, the network needs to be able to mitigate the overload. If not, then these situations can lead to total network failure. In traditional mobile networks, operators need to plan ahead of such situations by reconfiguring their network and possibly increase capacity by placing additional base stations near areas associated with potentially unusual load levels.
Manual reconfiguration is of course not desirable, nor even possible in some cases. Therefore, there is a need for a solution to address unusual load levels.